#telethena

Let me prove it:

A messy sketch I did of Telemachus and Athena. I would like to thank my friend @margaretkart for educating me about Telemachus and Athena’s relationship. I absolutely adore them and they just became my favorite mythological couple.

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Soooo many! I love sharing headcanons! Here are a few:

* They were attracted to each other right away. Not like “fairytale love at first sight” type stuff — that’s not them. But more like an instant connection and like “wow. It’s like I’ve known them forever and they truly know me” kind of thing. Plus, of course physical attraction. Telemachus was a bit “oh crap, of course I choose to be into the most unattainable Goddess , but ok, I’ll roll with it”. Athena, however, went into full existential melt down because apparently that whole “immune to Eros” thing was just classic bardic embellishment and she was 90% sure that she was about to destroy the very fabric of her father’s Kosmos by thinking a guy was hot. But of course, she just played it off like she was “fine”.

* Athena is extremely close with Apollo; he’s easily her favorite sibling and they share a very special bond, so she told him almost immediately. He was the first person to find out. The second was actually Orestes. Like, a minute after Apollo, since he was right near Apollo at the time. Neither were surprised that Athena & Telemachus were into each other.

* Apollo was stuck covering for Athena. Problem is, what is said about him “not being able to tell a lie” is true…as in, he’s TERRIBLE at lying. That’s why it’s very inconsistently stated that Athena was disguised as an old man.

*The wedding dress Helen gave to Telemachus wasn’t random. She had woven it for him to give to Athena, as Metis could not. (This is one of my favorites, as it fits in so well with both the peplos at Athena’s festival and also much of Euripides “Helen”. I adore when such things weave together so beautifully)

* Telemachus is taller than Athena. Sometimes he’ll rest his chin on the top of her head. This drives her nuts, but also she kinda likes it. But shhh.

* They’re very PDA around their peers (younger Olympians & kids of Trojan War heroes) —it’s a bit of a show of dominance/power play. Yet, they’re very into the scheming and strategizing that comes with sneaking around behind the backs of the elders and pulling one over on the Muses & Bards. IDK, they’re weirdos. Don’t kink shame 😂

*Telemachus is freaked out by Athena’s owl. It just keeps STARING at him.

*Zeus actually really likes Telemachus. He sees a lot of his younger self in him; who he was when he rose up against the Titans with the help of Metis… the part of himself that he has forgotten over the years. He’s totally unaware of the fact that Telemachus & Athena are hooking up, though…mostly due to being in denial about it.

them + the divine bitches they pulled by being mentally ill, featuring my alive Eury AU

Yes! I have been working on a novel for close to 8 years. Why that long? Because it requires an extreme amount of research, a piecing together fragments upon fragments of ancient text and weaving it together into something that creates an authentic story that honors the canon sources, history, and tradition in a way that is honest and accessible to to the audience while giving readers the “retelling” (I hate the term because that implies merely regurgitating the most basic version of the myth) that many popular books in this genre claim to give the readers, but have failed to. Honestly, all you guys deserve better. You deserve more. The fact that many of these types of books are written by Classicists— and teachers at that, yet they just do the same darn thing over and over again is pretty insulting to the readers, and comes off as more self indulgent and latching onto a trend than anything. This isn’t a jab at Madeline Miller. I actually spent quite a bit of time with Madeline on a writing retreat in Greece in 2019. She is an amazing woman and we had incredible discourse. But I am not Madeline, nor do I seek to style my work after her’s or piggyback off of her. This type of writing takes a long time.

That said, it is not merely just a “love story” about Telemachus/Athena. They are romantically involved and their relationship is a huge center of the story. But it is not a romance book.

It focuses about the Olympian children and the children of Trojan War heroes at the end of the Heroic Age, (so, when “The Oresteia” and “The Odyssey” take place), who were basically existed within the narrative to preserve their fathers’ glory. Namely Athena, Apollo, Telemachus, Orestes, and Neoptolemus. It deals with failed rites of passage, Mystery rites, the transition from Epic to Tragedy, and the end of the Heroic Age.

I’m just grazing the surface, it’s actually not that huge of a downer the whole time, as there’s a lot of great “found family” stuff, and honestly, the character relationships are a ton of fun.

It’s less “Circe” or “Song of Achilles” and more “The Secret History” meets “Spring Awakening”, but make it ‘The Nostoi’.

❤️❤️❤️ This makes me so happy, for real! It’s definitely not a dumb question! I look more at the historical aspect of the term “Parthenos”, which does not merely mean “maiden” in an “unmarried” way, (that was more a Biblical definition), but instead an age group of high-born adolescent girls on the brink of marriageable age who were often viewed as their fathers’ property in the myths/tragedies. Some examples of other “Parthenoi” are Iphigenia & Antigone…both of whom reference Athena several times in the context of their maidenhood. Athena’s “eternal maidenhood” is more a show of her eternal fidelity to her father, and also her separation from her mother.

So, unlike Artemis and Hestia, Athena didn’t actively make a choice in her “eternal maidenhood”, and, just as we see with the rituals and myths associated with Parthenoi (including Athena’s own at the Parthenon). We see signs of her approaching womanhood during the Trojan War (though she still comes off as rather young in “Cyperia” and “Iliad” era…I’ve spent way too long figuring out how Olympians age/grow. It seems like they just sorta grow at a slower rate than mortals? There’s a random headcanon, lol); such as when she goes for the Golden Apple and when she starts aligning with Hera and has her first ever disagreement with her father, causing him to lash out at her.

By the time “The Odyssey” happens, Athena is pretty done. Lol. It seems that she, Apollo, and Artemis are essentially “peers” with Orestes, Elektra, Telemachus, etc. At least in what they represent, but I tend to Occam’s Razor that whole thing and be like “oh, they seems like they were friends” (plus adds for great “found family”/“friend group” fun, which I’m a sucker for). “The Odyssey” opens with Zeus complaining about the whole Orestes situation and Athena just being like “Or we can just drop it and maybe look at Odysseus & his family”. She’s not fully listened to, so she sets out on her own. It’s kinda cool how her situation on Olympus mirrors that of Telemachus’ in Ithaca. So, she goes off to Ithaca and just straight up connects with Telemachus. The cool thing is, this is the end of the Heroic Age, and Athena is kinda picking what HER idea of a hero is, not her father’s. Telemachus is very philosophical and questions a lot of the Heroic Age ideals. He is a sort of “freedom” that Athena doesn’t realize she has, and through her he realizes his potential for heroic greatness, as he’s the hero she chose. There’s also the added bonus that ‘Metis’ is only ever mentioned in regards to Ithaca and the royal family, so while Athena is helping Telemachus reconnected with his father and grow into manhood; Telemachus is helping her reconnect with her mother and grow into womanhood.